Best Album Of All Times – Number 9: Phenomena – Phenomena (1984)

I don’t know if I ever experienced such a “listening-punch”, as the first time I heard this record at an acquaintance back in the 80’s (in Bergsviken Piteå). The vocals were awesome and the album was well kept together, and it was one of the first heavy metal albums that I discovered where normal and modern (at the time) synthesizers were used in such a good way.

Phenomena was not a regular “group”, but rather a “supergroup”, put together by producer Tom Galley, Wilfried Rimensberger and Mel Galley guitarist in Whitesnake) with many great musicians as contributors, among them Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple, Black Sabbath amongst others), Brian May (Queen) and John Wetton (Uriah Heep) and many others.

Phenomena’s production of rock songs based on a story line running through a whole album, attached to artworks and other multi-media aspects was credited for the “return of the concept album” in the 1980s.

There isn’t so much information about Phenomena to Discover, but an interesting news is that the recently formed “Tom Galley’s Phenomena” will perform live for the first time in Sweden 2014, at Swedish Rock.